Carg Made a Fightstick. Woooah!

You read that title, Carg made a fight stick! Made one! By himself! In woodshop class! What do you do in woodshop class, huh? Swords? Pssshh! I made a functional video game controller!

For those of you who are not aware (Which is probably most people reading) a fight stick is a controller that is basically the controls you would find on an arcade machine. They're often used in fighting games such as Street Fighter, Blazblue, Marvel VS. Capcom I still wanna play that dangit, and Skullgirls, my fighting game of choice, mostly because I don't suck at it.

One question I seem to be asked a lot is "does it work?". Of course it works, why would I be going around with a non functional controller with a joystick buttons? I guess it is kind of surprising that I managed to make this, but still. If you ever want to annoy me, just ask if my fightstick works. Or when I'm going to beat Battletoads, either one of those.

As for how I made this, it's basically just a box with some wires and holes inside of it. I ordered the buttons and joystick off eBay for about 40$, which came with a small circuit board that all of the wires connected to. I didn't even have to solder them, they just plug right in. It's supposed to only work on PC, but I haven't tested it on other consoles. It probably wouldn't work, but there is a thing I found online that would let me connect it to PC, PS2, PS3, and even Xbox 360. I plan on hopefully getting that for this someday, when I finally manage to get Marvel VS. Capcom 3 so I can use this to play it. I just wanna play Marvel VS. Capcom 3 ;0;

And that about wraps up this post. I'll probably update it with more pictures later, so stay tuned for that. If you like fighting games, I recommend trying out a fightstick, and maybe making your own, assuming you can get access to the materials. Overall, the fightstick is not yet 100% complete, I still need to make it work on other consoles, but aside from that, I'm really proud with it. Who knows, maybe one day I'll see myself winning a tournament one day! I probably won't since I'm a filthy scrublord, but hey, a guy can dream, right?

Carg's Stupid Xbox 360 Stories

The Xbox 360 is a console that has brought me a lot of disappointment and frustration. Not only do I find it a fairly boring console with not enough exclusives to warrant a purchase, but I've had some really bad experiences with the console in the past. The original white Xbox 360 model from 2005-ish is known for having many hardware issues, such as the infamous 3 light error, or the "Red Ring of Death." I myself have a few stories involving these rather stupid hardware issues, so I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, I'm gonna tell you how I bought 2 Xboxes that don't work.

The first one happened about a year ago; I was biking out looking for yard sales as I usually do, when I managed to find myself an Xbox 360 for 5$! What a Steal! The owner of the house was an older man, so he likely didn't even know what he had. Sadly, the small little bag I had was too small (INSERT DICK JOKE HERE) to fit an entire Xbox 360 and cable inside of, so I had to bike all the way back to my house to pick up another bag. After going back and biking a rather heavy console on my back during the rain. The rain! When I got home, I was ready to play test out the console, only to find out it didn't have any AV cables! Of course, this meant I couldn't use the system. In order to test out the console, I went over to my friend's house for the night. As it turns out, the console was only 5$ for a reason: It didn't work. It had the error code 74, which  according to Google, means a hardware failure. I would need to bring it in to get the console fixed, but I never got around to it. The console has just been sitting on a shelf for about a year now, not doing anything.

The next story happened sometime this summer. Once again, I found an Xbox 360 at a yard sale! This time,  the guy said it worked and was fully functional, he had tested it the night before! Well gee golly oh my, I can finally play Marvel Vs Capcom 3! I bought it for 50$ along with some controllers, and then set it all up. It seemed to work perfectly fine. I went over to my friends house, borrowed his copy of Marvel VS. Capcom 3, and went home to play it! Wow, I love this game so much, pulling off combos is so much fun, and it's great having 3 characters to switch between! Man, I am having such a good time!

GOD DAMMIT

Friggen red ring of death, ruining my day, all I wanted to do was play Marvel VS. Capcom 3! JUST LET ME PLAY MY FIGHTING GAMES MICROSOFT!

Thankfully, I was able to return it the next day and get my money back, but I still wish I could play Marvel VS. Capcom 3. I only got to play it for about 20 minutes total before my console decided to kill itself for no reason. It's insane how a console can be this faulty, my Super Nintendo from 199-something never has these kinds of issues. Heck, my Wii never has these problems either, and it came out only a year later in 2006! No other console I've ever had has ever just not functioned for no reason. I should just get a PS3 instead, it probably doesn't have these problems on it. Probably. At least I could play Marvel VS Capcom 3 on there without it breaking, and maybe I could even get my fightstick to work on it! On the upside though, they did release an updated version of the Xbox 360 with some issues fixed and improved hardware, not to mention it's black like the original Xbox!

And that's the end of my Xbox 360 stories. Hopefully one day I'll learn my lesson and not buy used Xboxes from yard sales, but I probably won't. At least I know what I'm doing the next time I get another broken Xbox 360:

Rivals of Aether

Hey, you there! Do you like Smash Bros? Do you have Steam? Are you not a filthy casual scrublord? Then Rivals of Aether is the game for you! Recently released on Steam Early Access, Rivals of Aether is a 2D arena fighter, very similar to smash brothers. One may even call it a "rip-off". It was made using GameMaker Studio, a software I use from time to time. This game really inspires me to try and make more with the program, too bad I'm a lazy scrub with no talent.

BUT YEAH, RIVALS OF AETHER! All of the characters feel really good to play as, and they're all really strong. None of the characters feel weaker than another, I've been wrecked online by each character at least once. My personal favorite is Wrastor, mostly because he's a bird. He can jump 4 times in a row, and can use his strong (Or Smash attack) in the air, but doesn't have one on the ground. If I were to describe him, I'd say hes a combination of Captain Falcon, Jigglypuff, Falco and Marth from the Smash Bros. Games. He's a really good character for me, mostly because I tend to jump more than I should in fighting games. I'm starting to also like playing as Frosburn, due to his smoke ability, and knives. Knives are fun.

Wrastor, that one character I was talking about. Look at how sexy he is, it's a bird with a scarf.
Who doesn't like birds? And SCARVES?

 I do feel like some characters are a bit easier to play as, though. For example, the character Zetterburn is a fairly easy to use character who can burn opponents and kill really early compared to other characters. Meanwhile, we have characters like Orcane and Maypul who are really complex, it would take a lot of time to learn how to practice and play as these characters. However, I've barely see anyone play them online, including me! I can't deny I never use them, nor do I feel like learning to use them. I myself prefer characters I don't have to try very hard to use! I'm not very good at this game...

And there you have rivals of Aether. I think it's a pretty dang fun game, and I reccomend you try it out sometime. We could even fight eachother if you have the game using online! I need someone to play against who isn't some guy who's 5 times better than me online and has a potato for a router. Laggy matches aren't fun for anyone.

Battletoads, Part 1: It's a game

It's the month of Halloween, as you can see from my last two posts made as a joke. Since it's the month of spookiness, I figured "Why not talk about something scary?" Of course, I decided to pick a game that strikes fear into the hearts of gamers everywhere: Battletoads.

Battletoads Title Screen

For those of you who aren't aware, Battletoads is a game for the Nintendo Entertainment System infamous for being one of the most stupidly hard games out there. The game was made in 1991 by the company Rareware (Source), who is famous for the Donkey Kong Country games Banjo-Kazooie, and being bought out by Microsoft in the early 2000's.  Many people have tried and failed to overcome this dreaded game, but few have managed to get past the third level. Even Speedrunners are afraid! My goal when playing this game was to a least get past the third level, so I can say I'm slightly better than most people who play this game. I'll do a quick run down of the first 3 levels, and my opinions on them. Before that, I'd like to first discuss why this game is so gosh dang hard.

Now I know you might be thinking: "But Caaaarg, this doesn't sound so bad, a lot of games did this back in the day! Haven't you played MegaMan or something?" Well, the thing about Battletoads is you only get 3 lives and 3 continues (Assuming you don't use the 5 lives code). You can gain 1ups from either getting 50,000 points, or just finding a 1up in a level. If you lose those 3 lives and continues, you're dead. Game Over. You gotta start all the way from the start.

3 lives.

3 continues.

That's all you get.

Have fun.

It doesn't help that 90% of the game is memorization and insane split second reaction times. I myself thought the game looked pretty fun, so I decided to try it out. After all, if one of my friends could somehow beat this game, I can do it too! After all. I'm a very talented person, and I can definitely beat this game! Yeah, I can totally do this! Help me

LEVEL 1: Ragnarok's Canyon

Level 1 plays out like your traditional beat em up game, you go left to right beating up enemies and can even pick up a weapon to use against enemies! The level is fun, and not too hard. It ends with a really cool boss fight from the view of the enemy. He'll shoot you with a bunch of pellets, which you have to pick up and throw right at the screen. A similar fight was in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time. It's a really cool concept for a fight, and I love how you never actually see the boss you're fighting, it's anyone's guess what he looks like. This level is really fun and easy, and makes you think that you're in for a relatively easy time, but nope, this level does nothing but lie to you and the game only gets harder and harder from here. Insert dirty joke here

Stage 1

Stage 1 Boss

LEVEL 2: Wookie Hole

Don't let the name fool you, Level 2 is not Chewbacca's butthole. It instead has you being lowered down into a cave, while various bug enemies try to attack you, Once again, you can take a weapon from one of these bug enemies to use against them. Another cool thing about this level is that if you go to the farthest side of the stage, you can turn into a wrecking ball and plow through any enemies in your way. There's not too much to say about this level, it's not much harder than the first level, but still pretty fun. The best part about it in my opinion is being able to juggle the fly enemies to get extra points, and eventually a 1up if you hit them enough. My favorite part of the game so far is trying to use the right moves to get the most amount of points so you can get extra lives, it's pretty dang satisfying. I also love how every level seems to do something different than the last, it's variety is really what makes the levels stand out as a game. There's not a single level that resembles a previous level in terms of looks or gameplay, and it's really cool.

Level 2

LEVEL 3: TURBO TUNNEL

And now we enter the dreaded Turbo Tunnel. The name strikes fear into the hearts of anyone who has played this game, or even heard of it. It's the infamous part of the game where everything get's stupidly hard and unfair. It starts out a lot like the first stage, making you feel relatively safe, as if this level isn't going to be so bad. Then, it happens. You hop onto that dreaded hoverbike thingy and the true part of the level begins. The level is just avoiding pillars in your way and jumping over pits while you're riding on the hoverbike, it doesn't seem that bad, huh? WRONG! The timing on some of these is extremely quick, and a lot of the times I feel like you need to know what's going to happen next if you want to avoid it. A lot of people despise this level, but how do I feel about it? Well, I honestly think it's a really fun level. I didn't have too much trouble dodging most of the things headed at me, and aside from the really stupid portion at the end of the stage, I personally don't think it's as impossible as everyone says it is. I think the easiest way to get through the dumb last portion is if you get into a rythem or listen for the sound Cues, you can maybe survive! Maybe. Honestly, I had a blast with this stage, and it left me wanting more stages like this, whether because I enjoyed the speed of the level, or because I like torturing myself while playing games, who knows.

That really stupid part near the end,
except it's slowed down. A lot.

And with that I conclude part 1 of this review. Overall, I'd say Battletoads is a fun game, even though I wouldn't call it a fair game. I recommend playing the game using infinite lives or the 5 extra lives code (Hold UP, DOWN A + B and then press start at the title screen), unless you feel up to the torture challenge to play it without infinite lives. God have mercy on your soul if you don't use cheat cheats. The first 3 levels are pretty fun, but good lord, the idea that there are harder levels than Turbo Tunnel fills me with nothing but pure fear. I'm not sure if I'll make a part 2, since I don't think anyone would be able to beat this game without cheating or losing every last piece of their sanity. I do recommend playing Battletoads at least once in your lifetime if you're up to the challenge. You can get it on the Rare Replay collection for the Xbox One, and there's also a version on the Sega Genesis. Be careful about trying to call a store for this game though, they don't take too kindly to phone calls about Battletoads.

OCTOBER IS HERE

Waiting for October...

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game and Nickleback Kidz Bop

Here's a slightly different kind of blog post: I recently found out that the game for my favorite movie and book series of all time, "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game" has been taken off the Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network Store due to an expired licence. This is a common occurrence with licensed games being sold on an online store, eventually the contract will expire, and the game will have to be taken off the store, never to be downloaded again unless they renew their contract, but that usually doesn't happen.. Another example of this is Marvel VS. Capcom 3 and all of it's DLC, the Deadpool videogame, and Jojo's Bizzare Adventure: Heritage for Future HD (That one really makes me sad). I've wanted to play this game for years, but alas, I never owned either of these consoles. If anyone would happen to own an Xbox360 or Playstation 3 with the game installed, I would really appreciate it if you could let me know, we could bring it to school and play it on a TV or something together. That, or just find a way to pirate the game or some crap. Usually I'd feel bad for doing that, but considering I can't even buy the game anymore, I don't really care. If you're willing to take up this offer, let me know at school, or write a comment on this blog post. Basically, just contact me any way you can. I really appreciate it!



On a side note, sometime after I did the Kidz Bop post, I had realized I made a grave mistake; I didn't include any of the Nickleback Kidz Bop songs. I apologize greatly for this horrible crime I have committed, but I hope to make up for my mistakes by including as many Kidz Bop Nickleback songs as I could find. I didn't think it was possible to make Nickleback worse, but I was clearly mistaken.

To be honest, I'm hesitant to be believe any of these are real, there is no way they made this many Kidz Bop covers of this band. Too bad they didn't do a cover of Rockstar, that would have been a sight to behold.


Anyways, I'm thinking on doing a review of Battletoads, or at least as much as I can manage to play without breaking down. I've managed to beat the infamous Turbo Tunnel Level without using a continue, so I'm already better than most people that try playing that game. Keep a look out on that.